Mercury and Me

by Jim Hutton

  Today I get on with life and rarely have black periods any more. To remember Freddie and our life together I listen to Freddie’s music. Tops for me are his two solo albums, Mr Bad Guy and Barcelona. The Queen song of Freddie’s which always sends me is the little love song ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ from the Innuendo album. As it’s also on the flip side of the rush-rereleased ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ single, it could be said to be Queen’s final song.

  The last few lines of ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ strike a meaningful chord to me. ‘Those were the days of our lives, the bad things in life were so few. Those days are all gone now but one thing’s still true, when I look and I find I still love you.’

  Freddie was the greatest love of my life; I know I’ll never love that way again. Although he did love to manipulate, he never tried to change me. And I never tried to change him. I would have loved Freddie regardless of who he was or what he did, because of his remarkable personality. I once asked him why, out of all the people in the world he could have had, he chose me.

  He looked at me and his big, brown eyes opened wide. He said: ‘You fought me, you won me!’

  If I could do it all again there would be changes. Freddie and I never discussed Aids, HIV or anything related to this terrifying illness. If someone’s honest with me then I’m honest with them, but the two of us never went into the realms of what might have been happening in our bedrooms before we met. There seemed little point. Today, everyone should know that the disease is sexually transmitted. With Freddie I never thought we would need to wear condoms. That was a terrible mistake.

  Looking back on it, I suppose I should have realised that Freddie was much more likely to be carrying HIV than me. Although he’d had many different partners, it never affected our relationship. I never thought about it. I met Freddie and we were lovers for the last seven years of his life. As far as I’m concerned, our life together started from scratch. People may say, ‘You fool!’ and I can’t stop them. I’d have liked to do it all over again – but this time with condoms.

  I’d give anything to spend my time over again with Freddie. If that could happen I would take a much more active role in directing the way his life – and illness – would go. When I opted to stay away from administering Freddie’s medication I thought it was for the best, and perhaps in many ways it was. But if Freddie and I lived our time again, I would get much more involved and want to know everything.

  Finally, I wouldn’t let other people walk all over me the way they did. All the time Freddie and I had our loving friendship I lived with certain people who dismissed me as ‘just the gardener’. The same people always introduced me to Freddie’s friends as his gardener. Freddie would never do such a cruel thing to me. I feel a lot of sympathy for the modesty of John Deacon, who would declare: ‘I’m only the bass player.’

  Joe came to me in The Mews one day and said: ‘Jim, I want to apologise.’

  ‘For what?’ I said.

  ‘For always looking on you as just the gardener,’ he said. ‘We never thought of you as Freddie’s boyfriend.’ It went some way to making up for all those cruel years.

  I’m not very religious, but I reckon I’ll be reunited with Freddie one day, though I’ve no idea how. When chatting with Joe once, we touched briefly on death.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘If I die before you I’ll tell him everything that’s been happening down here.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ I told him with a smile. ‘He knows.’